Chapter Twenty-nine

``Tell us,'' said the thin, pale-faced Krikkiter who had stepped
forward from the ranks of the others and stood uncertainly in the
circle of torchlight, handling his gun as if he was just holding it
for someone else who'd just popped off somewhere but would be back in
a minute, ``do you know anything about something called the Balance of
Nature?''

There was no reply from their captives, or at least nothing more
articulate than a few confused mumbles and grunts. The torchlight
continued to play over them. High in the sky above them dark activity
continued in the Robot zones.

Slow, numb astonishment crept up the bodies of Slartibartfast, Ford
and Arthur. Very soon it would reach their brains, which were at the
moment solely occupied with moving their jawbones up and down.
Trillian was shaking her head as if trying to finish a jigsaw by
shaking the box.

``We're worried, you see,'' said another man from the crowd, ``about
this plan of universal destruction.''

``Yes,'' added another, ``and the balance of nature. It just seemed to
us that if the whole of the rest of the Universe is destroyed it will
somehow upset the balance of nature. We're quite keen on ecology, you
see.'' His voice trailed away unhappily.

``And sport,'' said another, loudly. This got a cheer of approval from
the others.

``Yes,'' agreed the first, ``and sport ...'' He looked back at his
fellows uneasily and scratched fitfully at his cheek. He seemed to be
wrestling with some deep inner confusion, as if everything he wanted
to say and everything he thought were entirely different things,
between which he could see no possible connection.

``You see,'' he mumbled, ``some of us ...'' and he looked around
again as if for confirmation. The others made encouraging noises.
``Some of us,'' he continued, ``are quite keen to have sporting links
with the rest of the Galaxy, and though I can see the argument about
keeping sport out of politics, I think that if we want to have
sporting links with the rest of the Galaxy, which we do, then it's
probably a mistake to destroy it. And indeed the rest of the Universe
...'' his voice trailed away again ``... which is what seems to be the
idea now ...''

``Wh ...'' said Slartibartfast. ``Wh ...''

``Hhhh ... ?'' said Arthur.

``Dr ...'' said Ford Prefect.

``OK,'' said Trillian. ``Let's talk about it.'' She walked forward
and took the poor confused Krikkiter by the arm. He looked about
twenty-five, which meant, because of the peculiar manglings of time
that had been going on in this area, that he would have been just
twenty when the Krikkit Wars were finished, ten billion years ago.

Trillian led him for a short walk through the torchlight before she
said anything more. He stumbled uncertainly after her. The encircling
torch beams were drooping now slightly as if they were abdicating to
this strange, quiet girl who alone in the Universe of dark confusion
seemed to know what she was doing.

She turned and faced him, and lightly held both his arms. He was a
picture of bewildered misery.

``Tell me,'' she said.

He said nothing for a moment, whilst his gaze darted from one of her
eyes to the other.

``We ...'' he said, ``we have to be alone ... I think.'' He screwed
up his face and then dropped his head forward, shaking it like someone
trying to shake a coin out of a money box. He looked up again. ``We
have this bomb now, you see,'' he said, ``it's just a little one.''

``I know,'' she said.

He goggled at her as if she'd said something very strange about
beetroots.

``Honestly,'' he said, ``it's very, very little.''

``I know,'' she said again.

``But they say,'' his voice trailed on, ``they say it can destroy
everything that exists. And we have to do that, you see, I think.
Will that make us alone? I don't know. It seems to be our function,
though,'' he said, and dropped his head again.

``Whatever that means,'' said a hollow voice from the crowd.

Trillian slowly put her arms around the poor bewildered young
Krikkiter and patted his trembling head on her shoulder.

``It's all right,'' she said quietly but clearly enough for all the
shadowy crowd to hear, ``you don't have to do it.''

She rocked him.

``You don't have to do it,'' she said again.

She let him go and stood back.

``I want you to do something for me,'' she said, and unexpectedly
laughed.

``I want,'' she said, and laughed again. She put her hand over her
mouth and then said with a straight face, ``I want you to take me to
your leader,'' and she pointed into the War Zones in the sky. She
seemed somehow to know that their leader would be there.

Her laughter seemed to discharge something in the atmosphere. From
somewhere at the back of the crowd a single voice started to sing a
tune which would have enabled Paul McCartney, had he written it, to
buy the world.